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Expanding broadband and universal service in Kenya

According to an agreement signed today between the Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the US Government shall assist CCK in developing strategies to stimulate universal access to ICT services in underserved and un-served areas of the country.
The technical assistance covers the development of a national broadband strategy to underpin the deployment of modern broadband infrastructure to meet the needs of businesses, government and the entire economy. The assistance, which shall be provided through the USAID’s Global Broadband and Innovations (GBI) initiative, will also assist CCK in developing capacity in universal service Fund management, and universal service.

Addressing the media during the signing of the agreement at the CCK Centre, USAID’s Mission Director, Ms. Erna Kerst, said the US Government was happy to partner with Kenya in facilitating enhanced access to ICT services.

She said Kenya was ahead of many sub-Saharan African countries in the level of development of ICTs, particularly in the area of mobile applications.

“Kenya is leading the way in ICT innovations and in the development of applications that are changing the lives of people in Kenya and elsewhere in the World,” she said.

In his address, Ag. CCK Director-General Mr. Francis W. Wangusi said the development of universal access and broadband strategies would invigorate the growth of the ICT sector and thus accelerate the development of other sectors of the economy, including provision of e- and m- government services.

Citing the ICT Access Gaps Study undertaken by CCK last year, Mr. Wangusi said close to 1,120 sub-locations out of the total of 7,149 in the country had no access to basic communication services. This situation, he added, called for urgent regulatory interventions to facilitate the transition of a sizeable number of Kenyans to the digital age.

The Director-General decried the prevailing low penetration of data/internet services in Kenya, saying the country had only 5.2 million Internet subscribers, of which 2.33% were broadband. He said the strategies to be developed through USAID’s technical assistance would play a key role in improving access to communications services in all parts of the country.

March 10, 2012/by actualize

Agriculture, Energy, Environment, Environment, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

ICTs and Smart Grids, the Perfect Union

Photo Credit: Inhabit

Energy consumption is ever increasing. Supply systems can’t keep up with the demand and are maxed out, causing blackouts, unreliable service and headache. There is limited distribution for rural areas and alternative sources are difficult to integrate into the existing network. How are we to provide energy to a growing and more connected world?

A smart grid is a digital electrical grid. It gathers, distributes, and acts on information through meters that communicate via a wireless mesh network in order to improve efficiency and sustainability of electrical services. Often smart grids can reduce peak demand, shift usage to off-peak hours, lower total energy consumption, and actively manage other usage to respond to solar, wind, and other renewable resources. It allows consumers to optimize the generation, transmission, distribution, and use of energy in a more efficient way. Smart grids are slowly being implemented across the U.S. and Europe.

As a broad concept, a smart grid is envisioned to have the following key characteristics:

Self-healing: The electricity grid rapidly detects, analyzes, responds, and restores power supply;
Digital technology: Two-way communications and ubiquitous metering and measurement enable finer control of energy flows;
Integration: The grid accommodates a variety of resources, including renewable energy (solar, wind, biomass and hydro), demand side management and efficient end-use,
Empowering: Incorporates EE consumer equipment and behavior in grid design and operation,
Power quality: The grid provides quality power consistent with 21st century consumer and industry needs,
Cyber security: The grid mitigates and is resilient to physical/cyber-attacks, and
Fully enables and is supported by competitive electricity markets

The development community has been slow at discussing and beginning to analyze the impact smart grids could have, perhaps because the outcomes can be varied. The UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) has suggested smart grids for Sub-Saharan Africa as a solution to the lack of access and increasing population. A smart grid could leapfrog elements of a traditional power system and offer where it was impossible before. It can also offer lower rates during off-peak hours, charging for energy consumption via mobile phone. USAID has signed a partnership for smart grid technology development with Russia and India.

The most exciting example of implementation for 2012 is that of Equador. Under the state-owned electric utility, Electrica de Guayaquil, Equador has installed a meter-to-cash smart meter system that uses Itron and Trilliant’s communication platform. The communication network manages energy loses accurately, measuring use and other applications like theft analytics.

March 9, 2012/by actualize

Agriculture, Food Security, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

ICTs for “M&E” Component of the Ag. Value Chain

Photo Credit: Daniel Katz

Access to timely and accurate data on farmers, their households and farm activities is key for policy, decision-making and quality control for development organizations, national governments, funding agencies, project implementers, field workers, researchers and farmers themselves. Demographic data (past and present) on farm households such as land sizes, assets owned, types of soil, weather conditions, gender distribution, literacy levels, types of commodities being produced, diseases and pest, facilities for storage, among others are critical.

Unfortunately, the current status of data on developing nations’ agriculture at both local and global levels is far from reaching the stage at which policy makers can confidently draw upon for intervention due to the complexities with collection and analysis. The result is inefficient flow of resources into these communities due to under or over investments. The challenge is both socio-technical – human skills to design the necessary protocols for capturing these data as well as technological tools to facilitate the management (capturing, analyzing, sharing, etc.) of the data.

For far too long, exploring the role of ICT solutions to support value chain actors in this area have been ignored even though viable and potent ICT tools are in the market. ICT solutions identified in this component could be used in building and generating electronic forms for data gathering, help in timely access to data, facilitate easy and accurate data analysis, ensure monitoring of field activities, help in tracing of goods from farm gate to consumers, and assist in certifying commodities for quality assurance.

Photo Credit: Uganda App Lab

Potential ICT Solutions to Facilitate Agricultural Policy & Decision-Making

These are ICT solutions that facilitate accurate data capturing, analysis and sharing on farmers, their farm sizes, assets, commodities and other key identifications for enhancing policy decisions making by field staffs, governments, investors, donors and feedback into research and development. Examples of apps identified in this category includes iFormBuilder, a mobile platform for building robust forms, offline data capturing and managing data and users from any browser with the iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad with image and audio recording, GPS and mapping functionality, etc; Mobenzi Researcher that uses simple feature phones to high-end handsets to provide a tried and tested solution to enhance field research and data collection; and PoiMapper, a mobile point of interest data collection and sharing solution for affordable GPS-enabled feature phones that can make agricultural fieldwork more efficient and reliable through planning and monitoring of field activities.

Potential ICT Solutions for Traceability and Quality Assurance

These are ICT solutions to facilitate data gathering on farmers, their fields and specific information on their commodities for traceability and quality assurance. Examples include SourceTrace, a suite of ICT applications including traceability module that records delivery and transaction of data both entered manually into mobile device as well as from GPS, RFID and bar code readers, certification module for internal agricultural monitoring processes of agricultural commodity firms such as Fair Trade, and processing module that automates the capture of valuable information on the various light industrial processes of any agricultural commodity; Reliable Information Tracking System (RITS), a new coffee traceability program that is helping coffee growers become more efficient, reliable, and quality-focused by tracking deliveries of coffee from each member down to the details of what coffee varietals and quality score each lot of coffee receives; and, Integrating ICT for Quality Assurance and Marketing, a project that helps to build an internal control system for inspectors of Organic Producers and Processors Association of Zambia (OPPAZ) for quality assurance and thereby improve the value of the products for increased income.

In summary, ICTs have great potential for data management within the agricultural value chain for increased agricultural growth. Improved data used will influence how research is conducted and subsequently the kind of policy decisions that need to be made for funding and investment. For detailed information on ICT solutions for monitoring, evaluation and quality assurance visit ICT4Ag Database by GBI for an interactive experience and feedback.

March 9, 2012/by actualize

Agriculture, Education, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

How Technical Literacy Barrier is Widening the Mobile Phone Gender Gap: 3 New Reports to Consider

Photo credit: DIPTENDU DUTTA/AFP/Getty Images

With International Women’s Day this week on March 8th, several prominent aid and research organizations working in the developing world are releasing some fascinating new reports that explore how ICTs and gender impact each other. Creating a startling picture of the realities of gender disparities within an already gaping digital divide, the reports identify a technical literacy barrier that is hindering development for women at the Base of the Pyramid (BoP), or those living on less than $2 a day. It’s currently estimated that a woman is 21% less likely to own a mobile phone than a man, and of the large population of women that do not own phones, one report revealed that 22% of them claimed the main reason was that they “wouldn’t know how to use it”.

Termed the “mobile phone gender gap” by mWomen, a GSMA program which aims to reduce it by 50% by 2014, this inequality has recently been examined from several different perspectives: four case studies from India compiled by the Cherie Blair Foundation and International Center for Research on Women (ICRW); a research report that offers a narrative glimpse into the lives of BoP women, framework for designing business models and a set of research tools for conducting studies, all created by the GSMA mWomen Program; and an analysis of the results of several ICT gender focused projects conducted by the Swedish Program for ICT in Developing Regions (Spider).

Photo credit: Kelake.org

1. Connectivity: How Mobile Phones, Computers, and the Internet Can Catalyze Women’s Entrepreneurship

The Cherie Blair Foundation, a charity that supports women entrepreneurs in developing and transition countries, and the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW), an organization which aims to improve gender equality and reduce poverty in the developing world, teamed up to investigate four initiatives to target women and observe how technology is helping them to earn income. Through in-depth research and analysis, the report focused on the opportunities and challenges involved to reach several important conclusions:

Women will utilize ICTs to develop their businesses when the technology is available to them, increasing both efficiency and social status
Out of all of the ICTs currently available, mobile phones are the first choice for successful business ventures, with portability and adaptability being the biggest draws
Women using ICTs in their businesses promote their benefits amongst friends and family
Out of the few thousand women highlighted in the case studies, there’s still a lot of potential — perhaps half a billion women — for new entrepreneurial ICT initiatives in India
Partnerships are essential between the public, for-profit, non-profit and social enterprise sectors
Sustainability is still a challenge but could be improved with more multi-sectoral partnerships bolstered by the economic and social benefits
ICTs are attracting women entrepreneurs for their efficiency and time-saving capabilities though exploring new ways the technology can foster support and communication between women entrepreneurs still needs to be explored

Photo Credit: Reuters

2. Portraits: A Glimpse into the Lives of Base of the Pyramid Women

To provide a snapshot of what life is like for women living on under $2 a day, the GSMA mWomen Programme, a global public-private partnership between the worldwide mobile industry and the international development community including USAID and AusAID, created Portraits, a summarized version of a larger research report entitled Striving and Surviving – Exploring the Lives of Women at the Base of the Pyramid, due to be released on March 8th. To represent the mass of quantitative data and information collected from one-on-one interviews during the research, the report presents 8 fictionalized life stories from varying regions, each representing a different important aspect of life for BoP women. Here are just a few of the statistics that can be found in the report:

Of the women who did not want to own a mobile phone, 22% said the main reason was that they “wouldn’t know how to use it”
74% of women chose “a good education for my children” as one of their top five life priorities
83% of the women surveyed had not completed secondary education. 31% had no formal education at all
47% of mobile owners said they had been taught to use their handset by their husbands, while 34% had taught themselves
Only 6% of the women in the study knew (without being prompted) you could access the Internet through a mobile phone, and less than 2% had done so. Amongst young BoP women ages 16-21, 39% had some awareness of the mobile web, though only 5% had used it

Photo credit: womendeliver.org

3. Empowering Women Through ICT

Summarizing the outcomes and conclusions from five different projects using various ICT platforms carried out in five countries — Bolivia, Kenya, India, Rwanda, Vietnam, and Bolivia — this report created by the Swedish Program for ICT in Developing Regions (Spider) focuses on how ICTs can support women in the rural regions of the global south. By observing the impacts of the projects on the lives of each group of women, Spider researchers considered the implications of how technology affects gender just as gender affects technology through:

2 projects in Bolivia: one focusing on empowering female community leaders and one supporting victims of domestic violence through a safe virtual environment
A project carried out in both Kenya and India which focused on ecological sustainability, diversification of livelihood, basic training in ICT through self-help groups
A project in Rwanda which explored the use of ICT in small business development through a women’s basket weaving initiative
A research project in Vietnam which considered gender in the development of ICT.

March 8, 2012/by actualize

Agriculture, Originally posted on the GBI Portal, Women in Development

How can we empower rural women with bamboo tablet PC designed for “Men”?

Photo Credit: flickspire.com

The theme for this years’ International Women’s Day celebration is “Empower Rural Women – End Hunger and Poverty.” This is in recognition of the critical role and contribution women, especially rural women are playing globally to enhance agricultural and rural development, improve food security and help reduce poverty levels in their communities.

Unfortunately, there are others in Africa (my continent) who still believe that women or girl-child should support their mothers on the farm to send their brothers or boy-child to school. They still hold onto the stereotypical believe that Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines are for boys. No doubt, there is a recent announcement by Debonair Limited that a tablet PC targeted at “men” will be launched in Ghana next month.

My concern is, why for ‘men’ and why in Ghana (Africa)? Is it the right time to develop such a technology for Ghanaian men to celebrate success? What success are we talking about here? Should we rather be thinking of gender specific technologies for production such as ICT solutions for rural women in agriculture? These are questions I wish we can reflect upon as the world celebrates the International Women’s Day (IWD) on this 8th of March for economic, political and social achievements of women past, present and future.

ICTs are NOT Gender Neutral

At the February TechTalk organized by the USAID Global Broadband and Innovation (GBI) program on “How to Address Gender in Your ICT Projects” the CEO of Sonjara Inc., Siobhan Green, stated that ICTs are NOT gender neutral. Even though I have been thinking about gender specific ICT solutions for women in agriculture, and writing about ICTs for rural farmers before this TechTalk, my interest in the area has increased after hearing this statement. Are these new information and communication technologies (ICTs) really gender-biased?

With the above statement, it is therefore not possible for me to keep silence after reading the announcement from Debonair Limited. According to Debonair’s spokeswoman, ‘the fact is, men take their toys very seriously. After working so hard to achieve success, men deserve to own and play with the cars, the Yacht, the watches and quality clothes. The Bamboo D300 has been developed to celebrate a man’s success.’

Photo Credit: Debonair Limited

The CEO of the company also has this to say:

“Men will fall in love with the Bamboo D300 tablet because it is a simple, makes it easy to do the things men love – transact business, sports, watch movies, read books & magazines, listen to music, download apps, play games, check emails and surf the web on a simple touch-screen interface. It’s great for men of all ages, and provides a great intuitive experience; even for men who do not know how to use computers”- Mr. Adebola Omololu.

Even if this is just a marketing blurb, I think we have moved far beyond it in this information age. I’m wondering which of the above tasks listed by the CEO are beyond the reach of African women? What is so unique about business transactions, surfing the web, reading magazine, or listening to music on PC tablet that African women cannot do? For how long do we continue to widen this digital divide through our cultural and mental perceptions of women in Africa?

Making our priorities right!

Interestingly, I have been researching into ICT solutions – projects and mobile applications currently aiding agricultural value chain actors to increase information and knowledge exchange. Out of over 120 ICT solutions currently identified and analyzed, not a single one is gender specific. This means that it is up to the implementers of these ICT solutions to decide how best to increase women access to the technologies in their projects. Failure to do that will result in under-representation of women in these projects.

So why PC tablet for men in Ghana or Africa at this time? In Ghana, agriculture remains one of the key sectors with more than 80% of all agricultural production done on land holdings less than one hectare. The vast majority of these farmers are subsistence small-scale, rural women who lack access to improved technologies for production, storage, processing, and market information.

I believe what Ghanaian men need at this time is more than PC tablet for fun or pleasure. We need technology companies to think and design ICT specific solutions for our rural women who are “killing” themselves daily to keep us alive. At the just ended IFAD Governing Council meeting in Rome, Bill Gates stated that, “right now, a digital revolution is changing the way farming is done, but poor, small farmers aren’t benefiting from it.” And these poor small farmers are our women.

Women Agricultural Scientists Honored: From Left, Anne Gichangi, Ruth Wanyera and Esther Kimani

Instead of thinking and developing PC tablet for Ghanaian men for pleasure, fun and to celebrate success, I join Dr. Fenneke Reysoo to ask this interesting question: “Men, Where are the Women?”. On this International Women’s Day, Men In Africa, Where Are Our Women In Agriculture?

March 8, 2012/by actualize

Agriculture, Food Security, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

ICTs for “Productivity” Component of the Ag. Value Chain

Photo Credit: The African

Smallholder farmers face agricultural productivity challenges in the areas of under-investment in R&D; the actual processes of agricultural research and communication; access and utilization of agricultural inputs such as seeds, fertilizer, agrochemicals, etc. by farmers; and accurate information on field production practices. On the other hand, success stories of the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to minimize each of these challenges are being documented across the globe and the potential for increasing the impact of ICTs on agricultural production is huge.

As the first in the 3-piece series on “Mapping ICT Solutions along the Agricultural Value Chain”, this post explains how ICT solutions are being used or can be used by value chain actors within the productivity segment of the value chain. ICT solutions in this category may support value chain actors who are involved in agricultural research and development, input manufacture and supply, extension, and production for increased access to information and knowledge for agricultural production.

Potential ICT Solutions for Agricultural Research and Development (R&D)

Agricultural R&D is a key component of the value chain and in most developing nations, has great limitation due to poor access to the global knowledge pool by the developing nations researchers. ICT solutions in this sub-category may support the work of agricultural researchers, agricultural science students, extension staffs, and farmers to facilitate access to scientific knowledge, exchange of information between and among them.

Examples of ICT solutions identified include mobile applications such as the i) OakMapper, a mobile application which allows users to submit occurrences of Sudden Oak Death (SOD), search for incidents, and to report them to the geospatial enabled database; ii) Rural Universe Network (RUNetwork), a network of several partners in the Caribbean to help improve the availability of local knowledge and information through the development of a rural communication system; iii) eRails, a free website for partners across Africa working in the area of agriculture and rural development to help them share their new innovations; iv) AGORA and TEEAL by FAO and Cornell University respectively helping to increase access of developing nations researchers and academics to scientific journals to facilitate their research work.

Photo Credit: Thulasy Balasubramaniam and Graham Lettner

Potential ICT Solutions for Access to Agricultural Inputs

Increased access to inputs such as seed, animal feed, fertilizer, machinery, financial support, insurance, and irrigation systems at the right time, the right price, and in the right amounts is key for successful production by farmers. Actors within this segment are mostly private sector and for-profit firms that need to be in constant communication with the smallholder farmers to ensure profitable investment. Communication tools are important for continuous flow of information between these partners to be able to develop the right input that works for the farmers. At the same time, input manufacturers and suppliers are expected to collaborate with researchers who test these inputs for their suitability for farmers to help in commercialization and scaling up promising agricultural technologies that could benefit smallholder farmers.

ICT solutions within this category may support activities of input manufacturers, suppliers, and users for timely, more efficient and effective use of these agricultural inputs. Some of the ICT applications identified include the use of i) E-Voucher system in Zambia to facilitate easy access to inputs by farmers, help involve the private sector, and reduce fraud in the delivery of these inputs; ii) the Agrian Mobile Information Center, a mobile app that allows users to access product information while in the field, search by product name, active ingredients, signal word, etc. and iii) Kilimo Salama, an input insurance system in Kenya for farmers as they purchase inputs for their farms.

Potential ICT Solutions for Agricultural Production

Apart from inputs and other new technologies from research, farmers put in a lot of resources and efforts into the actual production process on the field. Smallholder farmers across the globe are known for their innovative activities in the face of limited access to scientific knowledge and resources for production. Information communication technologies can play significant role in either way – connecting them to scientific resources and information and also link these farmers together to share their indigenous knowledge and experiences acquired over the years. ICT solutions in this sub-category may help in communicating information to support field activities by farmers such as weather, pest and diseases, soil nutrient levels, harvesting practices, gestation cycles, and knowledge sharing among farming communities.

Photo Credit: FAO

Some of the tools identified within this group include i) Crop Calendar, an online resource created by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), which provides timely information about seeds to promote local crop production by farmers; ii) iCow, a voice-based mobile application that prompts cattle farmers on vital days of cows gestation period; iii) NEXT2, a geo-social application that is able to connect farmers with similar interest that are geographically co-located through SMS, voice, or mobile web to share local knowledge, expertise and experiences; and iv) a host of traditional radio programs that are assisting farmers’ production activities.

In concluding this piece, it is clear that the huge potential of the new digital network for agricultural productivity is yet to be fully exploited for smallholder farmers. The technologies are affecting the work of agricultural researchers, extension workers, input manufacturers and distributors, private sector organizations interested in partnering with governments to improve agriculture, and some farmers at the remotest communities. But stakeholders need to devise better strategies for fully integrating these solutions into their projects.

This is the first in a 3-part series that explains the role of ICTs within the three major stages of the agricultural value chain – Productivity, Marketing, & Monitoring and Evaluation. We’ll soon be launching a dynamic and interactive version of “Apps4Ag Database” project on March 9^th during GBI’s TechTalk:Mapping ICTs Along the Ag Value Chain.

March 6, 2012/by actualize

Agriculture, Food Security, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Mapping ICT Solutions along the Ag. Value Chain

The agriculture and food security value chain system is known for its complexity with varied actors at various levels interacting among themselves and with their external environment to provide sustainable food security situation across the world. In this complex system, the key for success depends on how well the value chain actors collaborate and coordinate their activities throughout the entire process from research and development through production to consumption.

The agricultural value chain identifies a set of actors and their respective activities that are aimed at bringing basic agricultural product from research and development, through production in the field, marketing and value adding processing to the final consumer. Within the agricultural value chain, irrespective of the model of the chain, three key components can be identified. These are activities associated with – i) productivity (Research and Development (R&D), input manufacture and supply, production on the field); ii) marketing (transport and storage, processing, retail and wholesale); and iii) Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) (policy and traceability). Marking out these components allows for identification of the actors that work within these three main categories along the value chain.

Communication tools for coordination of roles

In a complex system like the agricultural value chain, coordination of roles is key as the actors collaborate to exchange resources. Successful coordination of role calls for appropriate communication approaches and media for smooth flow of resources from one stage to another and from one actor to the other. The importance of communication within the value chain is becoming clear especially with the surge to develop new and innovative information and communication technologies (ICTs) for agriculture and food security.

The U.S. Agency for International Development’s new Global Broadband and Innovations (GBI) program with the mandate to focus the Agency’s attention and resources on leveraging the adoption of ICTs across its development portfolio has been exploring the role of the new technologies along the agricultural value chain for improved resource flow. Throughout our desk research, we have found that there are several discussions, and activities going on with the use of ICTs in agriculture and food security, and others specifically on value chain development. However, little is done to bring the two issues together.

The ICTs for Agriculture team at GBI has over the past few months been working to bring these two issues together to help identify what ICT solutions currently in the market are best fit for each stage of the agricultural value chain. The team has identified and selected over 125 ICT solutions (apps and projects) that apply to the various actors within the agricultural value chain, specifically for this initial stage of the project and has mapped out these tools along the chain.

This is an introduction to a 3-piece series that explains the role of ICTs within the three major stages of the agricultural value chain – Productivity, Marketing, & Monitoring and Evaluation. We’ll soon be launching a dynamic and interactive version of “Apps4Ag Database” project on March 9^th during GBI’s TechTalk:Mapping ICTs Along the Ag Value Chain.

March 5, 2012/by actualize

Agriculture, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Can ICTs help reduce side-selling? Challenges with financing the Ag Value Chain

Photo Credit: Microlinks

I was part of a recent USAID After Hours Seminar Series (even though this particular one was a breakfast event) sponsored by the Microenterprise Development office on the topic “Viewing Value Chain and Household Finance From a Demand Perspective.”

The discussion was led by Geoffrey Chalmers, a senior technical advisor at ACDI/VOCA and Jason Agar, Director of Kadale Consultants Limited who joined from the UK. The speakers identified among others challenges to the value chain financing from a demand side perspective. These include ‘side-selling’ which acts as disruption for agricultural value chains; enterprises and households facing production, price and market risks; the difficulties involved in obtaining finance for fixed asset; farmers losing value through forced early sale; exploitative power relations between producers and buyers; and weak working capital and cashflow within the value chain.

The speakers cited a case from Malawi where they identified governance structure – open (market based) vs. closed (directed) as one of the causes of side-selling and recommended “hungry season payments” to help farmers meet household demands for food, school fees at times of low income inflow. In Nicaragua, they observed that supervision of the harvesting process and provision of additional services by the union cooperatives and local microfinance institution (MFI) to the farmers could help reduce the side-selling.

So what is Side-Selling in the context of the agricultural value chain financing?

One of the features of the value chain approach to agriculture is the contractual arrangements between firms such as microfinance institution (MFI) and the farmers or producers. Farmers under contract are provided with inputs, training, technical assistance, credit, and other services as well as having a guaranteed market for their produce. These farmers are expected to sell their produce to the financing firm with guaranteed, and most of the time pre-determined price.

But at harvest time when the prices of the produce are higher in the external market compared to the pre-determined price with the financing firm, farmers have an incentive to sell to the spot market instead of selling to the firm that financed them. This practice is known as side-selling or diversion. Side-selling may take forms such as diverting inputs from firms to non-contracted crops; by not adhering to the production schedule agreed upon with the firm; by directly side-selling the produce to other buyers; or by failing to deliver the agreed volume and quality on time.

The root cause of side-selling in Ag Value Chain may be “communication”

So could the challenge with side-selling have anything to do with communication between the actors? If yes, how can the new information and communication technologies (ICTs) help in reducing side selling?

Information asymmetry between two parties in contract such as farmers and MFIs where one party has more or better information than the other could be the root cause for side-selling in agricultural value chains. In this case there is an information gap between the two parties, where farmers have less access to information and poor knowledge of the entire process assumed that there is imbalance of power in transactions and therefore resort to such practices as side-selling.

My personal experience with side-selling, a practice which was referred to as “Diversion” in the cotton industry in Ghana far back in the early 2000, confirms the communication challenge. The cotton sector in Ghana at the time was with little regulation leading to poor or lack of communication among the cotton companies as well as between the companies and the farmers. Farmers took advantage of the situation to defraud the companies through some of the practices associated with side-selling described above.

ICTs and Communication in the Ag Value Chain

Photo Credit: cartoonstock.com

ICTs are “communication tools” that are enabling access to information by rural farmers located in remote communities. These tools are facilitating activities associated with access to inputs by producers, the actual productions process by farmers, marketing and processing by retailers, and monitoring and evaluation of the transaction by the financiers and other donors. Integrating ICTs into the production, marketing, and M&E components of the value chain will ensure rapid flow of information between the stakeholders which will minimize misunderstandings, and allow for risk management, and provide higher levels of transparency.

Creating better communication environment between farmers, input suppliers, and buyers and also among the MFIs or sponsoring companies could reduce side-selling. Specifically, ICTs can be used in some of the following ways to reduce side-selling:

a) E-vouchers are excellent and more trusted systems for better transactions between farmers and input suppliers and can be integrated into the Ag VC,
b) Field staffs of MFIs and other firms could integrate ICT solutions into their production processes for precision agriculture that help farmers increase their production thereby minimizing side-selling,
c) iPad/iPhone applications are widely used now for data gathering and for making policy decisions,
d) ICTs could be used to gather accurate demographic information about farmers, their farm sizes, produce information on the field before harvest,
e) Specific traceability applications are being used to monitor produce from the field through to the final destination of consumption thereby minimizing fraud,
f) Market information systems are now available even in remote communities to get farmers informed of the global market as well as the local market,
g) With fast data gathering, ICTs can allow farmers to be paid faster to reduce the side-selling for other “urgent” needs,
h) ICTs can facilitate automated processes at the collection centers to minimize damage of perishable goods and increase the value of the produce for farmers,
i) Using ICTs to make farmers aware of the dangers and repercussions with side-selling due to improved and accurate data with the MFIs might help reduce side-selling,
j) ICTs are collaboration tools and could be used to facilitate collaboration among the sponsoring firms and ensure smooth flow of information among them to prevent destructive competition among them. Such competition among MFIs and sponsoring firms enables producers to rob one company for another.

ICTs are not the magic wand to the side-selling challenge with the financing of agricultural value chain. They are technological tools that can be used to catalyze the social processes by the stakeholders to help address the challenge.

Visit here for detailed information and resources on this event and future events by Microlinks.

February 28, 2012/by actualize

Agriculture, Education, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Delivering a Library of Books with Every E-Reader: How Worldreader is Improving Literacy in Africa

Worldreader, a market-oriented, not-for-profit NGO, is making subsidized e-readers available in parts of Sub-Saharan Africa and already seeing improvements in literacy rates. That’s just one of the many positive results that Dr. Jonathan Wareham, a member of Worldreader’s board of directors and Vice Dean and professor of Information Systems at ESADE – Ramon Llull University in Barcelona, Spain, discussed last week during a presentation at the World Bank headquarters here in Washington, DC.

Dr. Wareham and others at Worldreader are concerned about the growing book famine in Africa. According to a World Bank study conducted in 19 sub-Saharan African countries, only one of those countries, Botswana, “had anything close to adequate book provision in schools”. Using e-reader technology which can hold more books than most school libraries have in such countries — and with no added distribution costs — Worldreader has launched several pilot studies in schools in Ghana, Kenya, and Uganda. As of now, over 75,000 e-books have been distributed wirelessly to over 750 students.

The pilot study in Ghana, called iREAD, which received financial and research support from USAID, compared the rise in literacy rates over the course of one year for three groups of students: a group given e-readers without training on how to use the devices, another that was given out-of-classroom pedagogical interventions, and a control group without e-readers. Literacy scores for students with e-readers and no training improved 12.9% vs 8.1% of the control group, and students with e-readers and additional training improved 15.7% vs 8.1% of the control group.

Results from the study have proven the efficacy of the technology with the programs to support it and Worldreader plans to expand the Uganda initiative by doubling the number of students with e-readers within the next year. Besides improving student literacy scores, the project team also expects to see improvements in adult literacy rates since many of the students share the devices with their families and communities.

Unlike device-based projects such as the One Laptop Per Child program, Worldreader doesn’t produce its own e-reader — so far, it only distributes Amazon’s Kindle. Dr. Wareham describes Worldreader as device agnostic. “There’s no real need to be publicly aligned with either Apple, or with Amazon, or with Android — it doesn’t matter. What matters is bringing literature into the classrooms and as the devices converge and the prices drop, there will be more options to choose from.”

Also unlike most device-based projects, Worldreader invests manpower and on-the-ground support to ensure project sustainability. With the approval and support of government officials and the Ministry of Education in each country, the project so far works with teachers, students, and community leaders to provide training on how to use the the devices and make certain that the technology is fully understood and valued. Though high breakage rates and incidents of theft remain a concern for project implementation, Worldreader believes that providing more training on how to care for the devices, building relationships within each community to promote the device’s educational value, and discouraging theft will help to lower these rates.

Worldreader is looking to build on the success of the pilot studies by partnering with other organizations to expand to an estimated total of 10 projects in 2012. Dr. Wareham said that scaling remains to be a major challenge for the project but plans are underway to provide organizations with what he termed “Worldreader-in-a-box” — kits that will enable training programs to be developed where Worldreader project implementers are not able to go. In addition, the organization is working to expand an ePub platform that allows local authors’ works to be published and accessed on e-readers, creating opportunities for local authors and offering literary works that can help to foster national identity.

February 28, 2012/by actualize

Agriculture, Biodiversity, Environment, Environment, Environmental Compliance, Forestry, Land Management, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Successful Community-Based Forestry Management

Photo Credit: CARPE

The Congo Basin is a critical tropical forest that supplies vital regional and worldwide ecological services. It is one of the largest tropical rainforests in the world, home to thousands of endemic plant and animal species such as lowland gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos, and forest elephants. More than eighty million people depend on its abundance of timber and other natural resources for their livelihoods. A paradoxical note is that despite the richness of the Congo Basin, the people near it are some of the poorest in Africa. The forest is constantly cleared to make room for agricultural pursuits and to feed urbanized areas’ hunger for lumber. In addition to deforestation and forest degradation, illegal hunting and commercial bushmeat trade are major threats to biodiversity.

The Central African Regional Program for the Environment (CARPE) is a USAID longterm and regional initiative formed in 1995 in association with a consortium of government and NGO partners that concentrates its resources on six principal forested countries in Central Africa: Cameroon, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the Republic of Congo. Uganda, Rwanda, Chad, Burundi, Rwanda and Sao Tome Principe are also involved in the initiative. CARPE is intended to be a 20-year process, resulting in complete local guidance. A major objective of CARPE is to protect forest resources by reducing degradation and protecting biodiversity. Modern tools such as Landsat satellite-derived maps, remote sensing, GIS, and geospatial databases are used for planning and monitoring of the forest. With this information, threatened species are under the protection of local communities and logging is controlled.

Prior to the development of CARPE, vast areas of the Congo Basin were unknown. Since then, a number of initiatives and activities have taken place, resulting in an overall evaluation in 2011. In this evaluation, CARPE was deemed extremely successful for introducing large-scale ecosystem management approaches. Tens of thousands of individuals have been trained in a variety of conservation methods and techniques. With empowerment through such training and motivation that educates and organizes local groups to play an active role in forest and biodiversity conservation programs, civil society is being strengthened. This is seen as critical, circumventing the often inefficiently administered and economically weak centralized governments. The tools practiced allow for an understaffed patrol to communicate with a wider audience, limiting the “weak state management of these resources (that) creates a vacuum where local populations are often stripped of benefits as stronger or elite groups including private companies expropriate natural resources at sub-national and local levels.”Where will CARPE head in the coming years? The implementation of land use management plans for micro- and macro- zones, strengthening of government capacity and transparency are key.

February 23, 2012/by actualize

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